Hasta La Gadget!

We suspect most developers have gathered this since MIX earlier this year — many of them have been dealing with variations of the problem since the genesis of Microsoft’s .NET Framework — but we thought we’d throw out a note that word’s getting around on how easy it is to tear apart applications downloaded from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, gain access to their resources, and get a look at their inner workings. Microsoft has been encouraging developers on the desktop to make this tough by using code obfuscation tools — Dotfuscator, specifically — for many years, but Dotfuscator’s developer has only just released a free version (through March 31 of next year) for WP7, so it’s made things tough to secure. In other words: business as usual, and “business as usual” isn’t as airtight as your average white-hat dev would like.

On a happier note, an enterprising coder by the name of Chris Walsh has fleshed out some hooks into unmanaged (read: native) Windows Phone 7 services. It’s not what we’d call a “jailbreak” — you’re not altering the security settings of the device in any way — you’re just taking advantage of undocumented services Microsoft has in place, though it’s still very cool. Walsh promises some tutorials on hooking into cool stuff like file system and registry access soon, but he notes that apps using these hooks are still running as managed tasks, meaning they can be slapped around by the kernel (killed, suspended, and so on) just as any other WP7 app can — and we also doubt you’d be able to get Marketplace approval using this stuff.

PSA: Windows Phone 7’s third-party apps easy to decompile, native code hooks exposed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PocketNow, Redmond Pie, istartedsomething  |  MobileTechWorld, Chris Walsh  | Email this | Comments

Through Monday Nov. 15th, Amazon’s offering all AT&T handsets for a penny (plus that pesky new two-year contract). This is your first chance—unless you’re a Microsoft employee—to pick up a Windows Phone 7 device for practically nothing. More »

With the holiday buying season descending upon us, fancy new commercials are naturally ramping up in tandem. Microsoft has a new spin on its Windows 7 promotional efforts with its latest ad, which shows a Mac and a PC bonding over a Blu-ray copy of Avatar during a long flight. Naturally, the PC is the only one who can play Blu-ray, which is Microsoft’s semi-subtle pitch, but really this commercial is about the power of Friendship and Sharing Things With Others. We were halfway about to ruin it all by smarmily suggesting the fact that the Mac can play a very similar HD copy of Avatar pulled down from iTunes that won’t put as much of a hurt on his battery, but for whatever reason there’s no Avatar on the US iTunes Store right now (possibly James Cameron’s upcoming extended special collector’s millennium edition release has something to do with it?). Which brings us around to Apple’s real reason for not supporting Blu-ray: they can’t take it away from you.

Microsoft’s adorable new Windows 7 ad touts Blu-ray, shows Macs and PCs really just want to be friends originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Winrumors  |  WindowsVideos (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

Rather like Nokia and its market share obsession, Nintendo just can’t seem to stop talking about its hardware sales lead. The company’s US chief, Reggie Fils-Aime, recently dished some NPD data detailing the specific advantage that the Wii has over its competitors in the US since the current console generation launched: Mario’s team has managed to sell 30.4 million units of its hardware, followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 at 21.9 million and Sony’s PS3, which lags somewhere far behind with 13.5 million total sales. On the more mobile front, DS sales have ratcheted up to 43.1 million, more than doubling the PSP’s 17.7 million shipments to the US of A. Nothing we haven’t heard before, really, but it’s always good to get a statistical update for the sake of keeping flamewars as informed as possible.

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime dishes cumulative sales numbers for current console generation originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Kotaku  |  Gamasutra  | Email this | Comments

We gotta say, the last time we were this excited about hardware hacking For The Greater Good was when people started using the Wiimote for all sorts of awesome projects. Kinect is naturally a lot more complicated, but there’s also a lot of potential here, and we can’t wait to see what people come up with. Florian Echtler took that open source driver and hooked the Kinect into his own multitouch UI “TISCH” software library (which actually supports the Wiimote as an input already, funny enough). The result is a bit of MS Surface-style multitouch picture shuffling and zooming, but it uses full body tracking instead of touchscreen input, of course. The self-effacing Florian had this to say in the video description: “I thought I’d get the mandatory picture-browsing stuff done so it’s out of the way and everybody can focus on more interesting things.” You’re still a hero in our book, man. Always a hero.

Feeling left out on all these Kinect shenanigans because you’re rocking a Mac? Well, libfreenect has also now been ported over to OS X by Theo Watson (who sounds unenthused about his accomplishment in the video embedded after the break). Also: once you’re done admiring your IR-rendered visage on your shiny Apple-built hardware, scrounge yourself up a working Linux box. All the cool people are doing it.

Continue reading Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface

Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TUAW  |  Theo Watson (Vimeo), floemuc (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments